Arthritis has a serious impact on people's lives. Eleven point three percent (23.2 million) of Americans—more people than the population of Texas—report symptoms of arthritis. Among the many different kinds of arthritis conditions, osteoarthritis is the most common afflicting over 20 million people in the United States.
Osteoarthritis is a disease of the whole joint in which most or all articular structures are affected. Its etiology is largely unknown, but is most likely multi-factorial. Osteoarthritis poses a dilemma: it often begins attacking different joint tissues long before middle age, but cannot be diagnosed until it becomes symptomatic decades later, at which point structural alterations are already quite advanced.
In normal joints, a firm, visco-elastic tissue namely, cartilage, covers the ends of each bone. Cartilage acts as a smooth, gliding structure and as a cushion between the bones there by preventing biomechanical damage caused by severe loading. It is mainly composed of collagen and proteoglycan and sole cellular components, the chondrocytes. Chondrocytes comprise the single cellular component of adult hyaline cartilage and are considered to be terminally differentiated cells that maintain the cartilage matrix under normal conditions of low turnover. The dense network of aggrecan (aggregating chondroitin sulphate proteoglycan) and collagen fibers is essential for the biomechanical properties of the cartilage.
Aside from reducing one's weight and avoiding activities that exert excessive stress on the joint cartilage, there is no specific treatment to halt cartilage degeneration or to repair damaged cartilage in arthritis including osteoarthritis. Currently, the goal of treatment in osteoarthritis is merely palliative and is thus limited. Treatment merely involves reducing joint pain and inflammation while improving and maintaining joint function. There thus remains a need for alternative treatment options for osteoarthritis.